HOW THE AMAZON GOT ITS NAME

 

  ⭐ 1001 HEROES, LEGENDS, HISTORIES & MYSTERIES SHOW NOTES FRANCISCO DE ORELLANA: THE MAN WHO GAVE THE AMAZON ITS NAME

In 1542, a starving, desperate band of explorers drifted down a river so vast it seemed to swallow the world. At their head was Francisco de Orellana, a young conquistador from Trujillo who had no intention of becoming a legend — yet would end up making one of the most improbable voyages in the history of exploration.

This episode tells the full story of Orellana's journey down the Amazon:

• His role in the Pizarro civil wars

• The disastrous "Land of Cinnamon" expedition

• The mutiny that forced him to follow the river into the unknown

• His encounters with powerful riverbank civilizations

• The battle with warrior women that gave the Amazon its name

• His impossible arrival at the Atlantic

• And the tragic second expedition that cost him his life

Drawing from Gaspar de Carvajal's eyewitness chronicle and modern archaeological discoveries, this episode reveals how Orellana's voyage opened European eyes to a thriving Amazonian world — one that would soon be devastated by disease and disappear almost entirely from memory.

This is the story of the man who named the Amazon… and the river that changed history.

  ⭐ ALSO THIS WEEK: AT 1001 TRUE CRIME FROM ANOTHER TIME THE MURDER OF JOAN OF ARC AND THE TRIAL THAT BROUGHT THE CHURCH TO ITS KNEES

Releasing Friday at 4 PM ET

This week's True Crime From Another Time delivers one of the most powerful courtroom dramas in history.

Joan of Arc — hero of France, liberator of Orléans, and the teenage girl who changed the course of the Hundred Years' War — was executed in 1431 after a sham trial engineered by political enemies. But the story didn't end there.

Twenty‑five years later, her mother and brothers forced the Church to reopen the case. What followed was a legal battle that exposed corruption, overturned the verdict, and shook the foundations of European authority.

This is the trial that redeemed Joan… and condemned her judges.

Don't miss it.

  ⭐ COMING WEDNESDAY AT 4 PM ET TO 1001 HEROES WHEN HEMINGWAY SAVED THE PARIS RITZ IN 1944

A cinematic wartime tale featuring Ernest Hemingway, a jeep full of resistance fighters, and the liberation of one of the world's most famous hotels. Bold, reckless, funny — and pure Hemingway.

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